Places

Places in T-Space

T-Space, Terraform(ed) Space, can have several meanings depending on context. In general it refers to the roughly 50 lightyear diameter sphere of explored (for various values of explored) space centered on the Solar System. It could also refer to the set of stars with terraformed planets, a set of as-yet undetermined extent, which the above spheroid is included in. At its most restricted it refers just to the dozen or so settled systems between which regular travel occurs (thus including e.g. DeltaPavonis but excluding Chara ).

As far as possible, the astronomy or stellar cartography of the T-Space stories is accurate. If I write that Verdigris, a planet around Delta Pavonis, is 19.9 light years from here and 16.5 light years from Alpha Centauri, you can trust those numbers (for the stars, anyway). I spend a fair bit of time working out 3-D relationships between stars using the best data we have (as well as some great tools like Celestia for visualizing same). Of course, I have no way of knowing if there’s actually a planet matching Verdigris’ description orbiting Delta Pavonis, (I'd be as surprised as anybody if there was) and indeed the rate at which we’re discovering exoplanets — planets around other stars — is a little scary in that any time now we could discover planets around Delta Pavonis, or any of the other stars mentioned in my stories, that would make that aspect obsolete. That’s an occupational hazard of writing “hard” science fiction; look at how much what we know about the Solar System has changed since the early days of Heinlein and Clarke. For that matter, Larry Niven’s first sold story was rendered obsolete by astronomical observation before it saw print (but they went ahead and printed it anyway, it’s still a good story, titled “The Coldest Place”). To say nothing of canals on Mars or rainy swamps on Venus.

Naming/numbering Conventions

All stars mentioned in the T-space series are real and as described (although their planets may be fictional). There may be one or two exceptions further from Earth for story reasons. If so, these will be located in areas not visible from Earth (e.g. occluded by a nearer star.) Many stars have multiple names: some have a common name (like Sirius or Chara), most have a constellation name (such as Alpha Centauri or Epsilon Eridani) and all will have one or more catalog numbers (Wolf 359, BD +5 3189, etc).

Planets, other than a proper name (Mars, Kakuloa, Sawyers World) are labelled in traditional science fiction notation, a roman numeral indicating its position from the primary. Thus, Earth is Sol III, Mars is Sol IV, etc. This differs from the current astronomical naming convention where exoplanets are labelled with a lower-case letter indicating the order of discovery. The primary star is always "a", the first planet discovered is "b", the second "c", and so on (thus, Proxima Centauri b is the first planet discovered around Proxima Centauri). Given the current state of the art, we can't be sure we've discovered all the planets in a star system, or even be completely certain of their distance order, so this makes more sense than the science fictional roman numeral system. When we can visit the star system and photograph it from multiple different angles, picking out all the planets and determining their sequence is much easier.

Star Systems

• Sol
• Alpha Centauri
• Tau Ceti
• Epsilon Eridani
• Epsilon Indi
• Delta Pavonis
• Zeta Tucanae
• Chara
• Alpha Mensae
• Zeta Reticuli
• Wolf 359
• Procyon
• Lalande 21185
• 82 Eridani

Planets, moons, etc

• Kakuloa (Alpha Centauri B II)
• Sawyers World (Alpha Centauri A II)
• Taprobane (Epsilon Indi III)
• Verdigris (Delta Pavonis III)

Table of planet moons

Note: This table is provisional, and needs considerable work. In general, any Terraformed planet will have at least one large moon to help stabilize the rotation and help keep tectonic forces working. Additional smaller moons may also be possible.

It may not be good to have two large similar-sized moons because of gravitational interactions (this may also cause smaller moons to collide or be ejected). It works for the gas giants because their gravity dominates. We don't know how long Pluto/Charon has had its moons.

Star	Planet	Moon #	Name	R (km)	Dens	Grav (m/s)	Orbit	Period	Notes
Sol	Earth	1	Luna	1737	3.346			27.3d
α Cen B	Kakuloa	1		1650	3.470	1.601		25?
α Cen B	Kakuloa	2		231	3.230	0.209		37?	Resonant with moon 1?
α Cen A	Sawyers	1		1438	3.287	1.322		31.4?
δ Pav	Verdigris	1
ε Indi	Taprobane	1
τ Cet	Skead	1
Chara	III	1

Countries, cities, settlements, etc.

Kakuloa

• Kreschet Spaceport (Note, original landing vehicle was Krechet (Кречет), the extra 's' spelling is closer to how it is actually pronounced.)

Sawyers World

• Sawyer City

Skead (Tau Ceti)

• Skead

Veridgris (Delta Pavonis)

• New Toronto
• Verdigris City

(Epsilon Eridani II)

• Spitzer Spaceport

more TBD